Are UN Climate Assessments Obsolete?

The sweeping multi-year assessments produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change set the gold standard for global scientific consensus on how humanity is altering Earth’s climate, and how to anticipate and minimize those changes. Some top climate scientists, however, are reviving a harsh critique of the IPCC’s assessment process, saying that it takes too long and that the delay could actually be creating an excuse for political inaction. The production cycle for what will become IPCC Sixth Assessment Report—began in 2015 and will not conclude until 2022. That seven-year schedule is simply unacceptable for a document that is “relied on by countless decision makers around the world every day,” said Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist and co-director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech. Read on at InsideClimate News